Pocket Money

I was getting about £3 then, it might have been about £7 to get in to a Barnsley game - usually managed to afford it with my paper round money or by bugging my mother.

For the same price though you could to Delta Bowl all day on a Saturday with as many games of bowling and quasar included, plus you got a burger, chips and a drink included in the price.

 

2 words - "agreed" and "doomed"

 

I think I'm going to adopt it as my signature for 2013. It seems to have struck a chord with a number of people.

 

kids these days DO NOT get enough money to pay for 2 games a week and a program.

but to be fair pocket money is none exsistant these days. my sister never gave her kids pocket money just when they asked for something if they could afford it they got it.

 

Yes, a lot of clubs are going to be losing a whole generation of fans before they do something about it. Actually, I reckon we're only a few years away from the biggest changes to the football league structure since they did away with division threes north and south, and I wouldn't be surprised if going back to regional lower divisions isn't part of it, after they create the inevitable European League and Premiership 2. Smaller clubs will become feeder clubs too to stay afloat. I'm sure the likes of Bury won't mind filling their team with Man United's youth team if Man United bankroll it, for example.

But I digress! Many clubs, as we did, offered the free season tickets to under 12s. As it was, as far as Barnsley were concerned, it was a bit of a waste of time, as a very low percentage of the free kids actually turned up. In many cases it was simply a way of season ticket holders ensuring there would be a free seat next to them for when their mates go. In fact, at the beginning of this season I refused to let my dad get a free season ticket for my then 6 year old daughter (who has no interest in football) for that very reason. But when the kids get to age 12 the prices suddenly shoot up and many can't then afford to buy an adult and a child season ticket, so the kids drift away. Oce they have drifted away and found cheaper alternatives on a Saturday afternoom it is going to take a lot to get them back. Man United at home in a cup or Premiership footy basically.

It does sound daft though that we are moaning anout the prices on the one hand and then moaning because we don't have the finances to attract a top manager or quality players on the other. Unfortunately it is far from as simple as reducing the ticket prices to ensure a bigger crowd. Unless we reduce them to an unsustainable figure it wouldn't have a significant effect on the crowd anyway, as has been proved in the past. There's just no easy answer* to this conundrum, which is why I wouldn't fancy Don's job, but it is easy to see that the ticket prices as they stand are way to high.

*actually, there is a very easy answer to most of football's problems and that is that collectively the league clubs need to take a stand on players' salaries. We're bottom of the league, losing week in week out, are performing so badly that the manager gets sacked and yet we have players that aren't ever likely to get anywhere near the first team that are earning over £100k per year. It is acknowleged that BFC run on very limited staffing numbers, so how about getting some of the useless lumps working for their money. They should be out there selling the club, visiting schools, arranging after school coaching classes, handing out flyers and signing autographs in town, going round the hospital more often than once every Christmas.

Reds fans cannot afford to pay the ticket prices to keep these people in their high wages and every football league team is in exactly the same situation. My company wasn't bringing in enough income to keep us all in wages, so a couple of dozen of us got laid off just before Christmas. Oh to be a footballer!

And don't give me all that "it's a short career" nonsense, because I am in my third career and the footballers do have enough spare time on their hands to educate or train themselves so that they can take an alternative career when their footballing skills disappear.

Footballers wages, the root of all the problems. The reason why ticket prices are too high, the reason that football clubs go into administration (if the wages weren't so ruddy high the collapsing of TV deals wouldn't put clubs under). The fans know this is the problem, the club administrators know this is the problem and yet nobody does anything about it.

Right, rant over, back to looking for work. I have to pay for my season ticket somehow you know! Wish I was 25 years younger and a bit better at football.

 

Spot on there Gordon O. Very well our too. Good luck with your job search. And people are feeling sorry for keef, I am sure he will be ok for paying the bills.

 

You need to ask Fired what the going rate is for her (almost) 13-year old - when she returns from one of her many "get away" weeks, that is. My 11-year old gets nowt because she rarely does any chores. As and when she does, she might get something. Until then, she can dream on. (But I think the going rate here is about $10 a week - and the average ticket price for a NHL game is about $80..... so make from that what you will).

 

Just to counter the workshy feckers, at 14 I had two paper rounds. Morning and night. I couldn't have afforded to go to games without my dad buying a season ticket.

It's not particularly new that kids have been priced out.

 

at the moment the average NHL price is nothing LOL.

Was looking forward to watching the flames play here in DC but alas it was cancelled.
heres hoping the lockout sorted the Redskins may well lose this weekend then what. Im not following the wizards basketball there garbage. lol

 

Totally agree.

In a nutshell, pocket money too low, wages too high. Football as a whole must solve the problem, not just Barnsley FC.

 

It depends how old you are of course. I'm 57 and at that time (late 60's/early 70's) I really could afford, on my pocket money, to go to a match without even thinking about the cost. Later on I did start doing paper rounds etc, which allowed me to go to away matches as well.

As I remember it was only fairly recently that I began to think "hang on, this is getting expensive". Probably around 2003 onwards or so, it kind of crept up on me.

£38 at Leeds, £31 at Ipswich, £28 at home or whatever. In the famous words of Mr Stelling on Sky at the Liverpool game "Yerr 'avin' a laff".